the sinking

this morning i awoke

with the head of an axe behind my left eye

and a searing lightning in my skull

remembering that time my daddy killed

the snake in the grass with the old shovel--

he cut that question mark clean in half

this afternoon i searched

for sharp objects with my eyes closed

and swallowed tiny metallic moons

only pitching them to rise again

on terrible, foamy whitecaps

that used to make me afraid of sinking

but i've become used to their currents now

tonight i was fixing to celebrate

the anniversary of my great undoing

one full planetary churn

since my head brimmed and bubbled

with thunder and gunshot and seasickness

three hundred sixty five wretched days floating like an unsure bobber

and i still can't rest easy these nights

there, tomorrow, in the cathedral dawn

i'll toss my heart in a dark bait bucket

with the fetid snake guts and the minnows

and the bloody pieces of me and you

they took away--

then row quietly to the cove,

the one with the water lilies

and i'll shed them all quickly overboard

to sink and sleep at the bottom

with my terror and the leggy weeds

(then maybe, as the fog is lifting,

i will float softly backwards past the willow

to my father's house before the kitchen light

has even clicked on)